Becoming Junia - again

Who was Junia and why, along with Mary Magdalene, has she become an icon for those seeking full recognition of women in the church?

Church saints, from left, St. Andronicus, St. Athanasius of Constantinople and St. Junia. A debate is ongoing about Junia's sex.

By:Michael McAteerSpecial to the Star, Published on Thu Aug 09 2007

Who was Junia and why, along with Mary Magdalene, has she become an icon for those seeking full recognition of women in the church?

Unlike the rehabilitated woman from Magdala, Junia is hardly a household name even among the biblically literate. She's mentioned but once in the New Testament in Paul's letter to Roman Christians.

"Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me: they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was."

That's the translation in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, the version most often used by the largest of the mainstream denominations.

Pick up another translation and you might find Junias (male) rather than Junia (female). You might also read that Andronicus and Junia/Junias were "noted," or "renowned," or "outstanding" among the apostles. So, why did Junia become Junias and what role did she play in Christianity's formative years?

Using her well-honed skills as a journalist, Rena Pederson set out to find the answers. Her search took her through dozens of Bible translations, to interviews with a spectrum of scholars and to theology schools in the United States and abroad. The Lost Apostle: Searching for the Truth About Junia (Jossy Bass) is the story of that search.

The award-winning Pederson, with 30 years' experience as a newspaper editor, is a communications adviser to U.S. Undersecretary of State, Karen Hughes. She is also a United Methodist Church laywoman who studied women in the Bible for her book What's Missing?

Pederson first heard of "Junia" while speaking to a book club about women in the Bible. A woman in her audience suggested that the "little known apostle Junia" was missing from a list of influential biblical women.

"Paul praises her as one of the greatest apostles but the translators didn't think that a woman could be an apostle, so they changed it to a man's name," the woman said.

Pederson had spent a lifetime of Sundays at church yet she had never heard of the biblical Junia. Nor had anyone else in the room. She wondered why? Could Junia provide an important precedent for women preaching and teaching? Could she provide a psychological boost for women?

By the time Pederson started writing The Lost Apostle, she had heard and read a lot about the elusive Junia. She found no "grave stone, no `smoking gun,' no hard physical evidence." What she did find was enough hard data to convince her that, because of her sex, Junia had been given a raw deal by a patriarchal institution. She felt that she had found the woman so highly praised by Paul, a woman who was perhaps a small "a" apostle, but an apostle nonetheless.

Of course, there are dissenting voices. Some scholars accept Junia was a woman but dismiss the suggestion she was an apostle. Others argue there is no conclusive evidence to prove Junia was a woman or an apostle.

And there are those who see the whole argument that Junia was a female apostle as nothing more than ammunition to support a feminist agenda.

In her book, Pederson points to Paige Patterson, the conservative president of Southwestern Baptist Seminary, as an example of those who believe an egalitarian agenda is driving the revival of Junia's name.

"The point is that there is no way to establish that Junia was in fact a female," Patterson says. "The attempt to make her one of the apostles, based on a suspect text that cannot be proved, is an agenda looking for a reason. You've got to remember that just because people are scholars doesn't mean they don't have an agenda."

There is no agenda, Pederson says. Junia is not a "recent feminist fad but a historical woman of faith." She offers several reasons for believing this:

Church fathers and scholars recognized her as an apostle from the 1st through the 12th century. Even the sometimes misogynistic, 4th-century Archbishop of Constantinople, John Chrysostom, praised Junia. "To be an apostle is something great," he said, "But to be outstanding among the apostles – just think what a wonderful song of praise that is."

The Orthodox Church has honoured her as a saint since the 10th century and most Bible translations and leading scholars, male and female, now recognize her name. Adding weight to Pederson's arguments are the philological studies that show Junias was never in usage in antiquity whereas Junia was a well-known woman's name.

So why did Junia became a male?

Historian Garry Wills in What Paul Meant says Junia was erased from history because it was unthinkable that a woman could have been an apostle. The very idea "offended the monopoly of church offices and honours" enjoyed by males.

"Only the most Soviet-style rewriting of history could have declared Junia a non-person and invent a new team (Andronicus and Junias)," he says.

Pederson points an accusatory finger at a succession of male scholars, starting with the 13th-century Archbishop Giles, for erasing Junia from the New Testament. The archbishop's mistranslation of Junia's name, she says, appeared to flow from Pope Boniface's "prejudice that women were to be kept in their place."

Considering the cultural climate of a time when women were treated as minor children with no legal or property right, it is understandable, Pederson says, "that Giles could not fathom that a woman could have been an apostle."

Yet the tide appears to be turning in Junia's favour.

Pederson is encouraged by the trend. "I do hope," she said in a telephone interview, "that more people try to do what I did and look at the history and have an honest debate about it."

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